


Leverage

by Garnet_EveSky



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Divergence - Black Sails, Flint and Silver on a beach, I took major liberties writing a past that Silver never shared in the show, Indomitable Wall of Flint's Psyche, M/M, OOC, Somewhat angsty for mentions of Silver's past, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26630365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garnet_EveSky/pseuds/Garnet_EveSky
Summary: Season 1 AU prior to Billy falling off the ship - Silver's on the beach, Flint joins him. Rum is shared, and so is Silver's history.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Leverage

**Author's Note:**

> My first Black Sails fic - please go easy.  
> Any mistakes are my own.  
> Comments are

Silver and Flint find out about each other's past, and it’s not too different to the other.

Fog cast over the still bay, distorting the moonlit glow into a hazy light, but the fires spotted about the beach kept the dampness away. The Walrus had anchored in a small, sheltered bay, and the men (apart from a skeleton crew still aboard) mingled around the various fires littered on the sandy beach, rum passing from hand to hand, the manly octaves of shanties raising and lowering in the background as Silver stared into his own fire. He was up the beach, a way away from the main groups of men, his small fire keeping his fingers warm and his face lit by the crackling orange glow.

Lost in thought as he was, Silver hadn’t heard the stumbling walk or the shuffle of sand, and jumped when a figure sat heavily down beside him. Looking across at the newcomer with a scowl and harsh words on his lips to tell whoever it was to go away, he saw Flint and gave a small sigh of relief. At least he wouldn’t have to make much conversation - the man was a veritable wall of silence with a stoic disposition at the best of times - barking orders and sneering, and generally refusing to be led into Silver’s oral meanderings on any and all given topics at any one time.

As Silver turned back to gaze into the fire, he felt a cool weight press against his forearm, and gratefully took the glass bottle the Captain had offered, hearing the telltale splash of rum inside. It was still over half full. 

No better time than to try and pry a brick loose from the indomitable Wall of Flint. “What are we drinking to, Captain?” Silver asked.

“To the magic ‘if’,” Flint responded, and it wasn’t fair, Silver thought, when he could smell the rum on the captain's breath, the first brick had already been pried somewhat loose for him in Flint’s wall. Still, a challenge was a challenge, and perhaps he could gain some insight as to why Flint was the way Flint was, some _leverage_. 

“To absent friends, then?” Silver asked, wiping his sleeve on the lip of the bottle to clean away sand before drinking deeply, “It is a Sunday, is it not?”

“Sunday, Saturday, doesn’t matter anymore,” Flint replied, taking the offered bottle back from the dark haired man, “At least, right now it doesn’t matter.”

“Wife? Sweetheart?” Silver asked, it could be either, but if Flint was offering, who was he not to take advantage of a little probing. It could be that the Captain had something to hide. Still, perhaps it was just his personality, but Silver knew when someone had been dealt a harsh blow in their past, and he was aching to find out if he was correct.

“Both,” Flint took a mouthful of rum, and hissed at the warmth sliding down his throat, the bottle dangling from his fingertips as he sloshed the liquid around inside absentmindedly, “Neither.”

“Captain, far be it from me to point out the wrongness of that statement, but that, is in fact, impossible.” Silver replied, perhaps the alcohol would do the majority of the work to get Flint to open up to him, all he needed to do was to prompt him in the right direction.

“Is it? And what would you know of it?” Flint scowled, giving Silver a sideways glare as he shoved the bottle towards Silver again, pressing the glass against his arm once more.

Silver took the bottle and studied the orange glow in the shiny surface before replying, “Well I know that the Barlow woman is more to you than the crew suggests she is than you let on, despite the talk. Plus the mention of a sweetheart is possibly alluding to another relationship that has been….lost?”

“Lost,” Flint repeated, turning back to the fire, leaning back on his hands and crossing his long legs in front of him, giving a heavy sigh, “Lost, broken, never forgotten.”

Silver looked at Flint, deciding to press the issue further, passing back the bottle. Flint took a long draught, placing the bottle in the sand between them.

“How long were you together?” Silver asked, his voice quiet, gentle like the waves and as soft as the mist that rolled over the bay. With any luck, he would have his answer shortly. That first brick was almost out of Flint’s Wall.

“Less than a year, not long enough,” Flint replied, his voice just as quiet.

Silver looked over at the captain and saw the man had tipped his head to look at the stars above, peaceful in his reflection with his hair loose from his tie and hanging about his face, something inside Silver yearned for that indifference, but he pressed on, “And that is long enough to be considered a sweetheart?”

“It was for us - it hadn't started that way,” Flint’s words faded again into silence, and he took the bottle resting in the sand and drank again.

Silver glanced at Flint, then back to the fire. It would’nt do if Flint caught his gaze and felt he was being challenged or, heaven forbid, judged.

“How did it end?” Silver asks just as gently, reaching out in askance for the bottle, which Flint handed over easily.

“We were discovered.” A deep sigh, a tear welling up in his eye, and Silver looks back to the fire to give Flint a modicum of privacy even as his words continued prying that brick looser still.

“And that was a crime?” Silver wondered aloud, “For having a sweetheart and a wife?”

“Never a wife,” Flint swiped the back of his hand across his face, “Lovers. Two lovers.”

“But still, a crime?” Silver pushes lightly, needing the words to come loose from Flint.

“I don’t think you understand,” Flint brings his legs up, elbows resting over them as he brings his gaze back to the fire.

“Help me understand,” Silver presses again.

Flint gives him a long and sad look through bloodshot eyes, the evidence of tears down his cheeks that his hand had not wiped away properly. 

It was now or never. If Silver didn't pull that brick loose, he would not have another chance to understand this man, his reasoning, _him_ , again.

He put his hand gently on Flint’s forearm, looking at him with concern, “James, please.”

Flint glanced at the hand, warm on the bare skin of his arm, at the fire, then back to Silver, “You would hate me for what I had done, what I am,”

Silver had reasons to believe Flint. What he’d witnessed with Singleton. The vicious and barbaric way his captain had single mindedly hounded for the Urca gold. His smile. His eyes. The apparition of a madman.

But that wasn’t _all_ Flint was.

“If I had not seen what you are capable of with my own two eyes in the last few weeks, I would beg to differ how I could hate you?”

“No one knows of my past here. Why should you?” Flint turned his head slightly and looked towards Silver in askance, and Silver gave a brief shiver as the breeze picked up from the bay.

“I said I had hoped we’d be friends, and I stand by that.” Silver took the bottle from the sand, “And for some strange reason, I would like to get to know you better.”

“And you think you are worthy of me divulging my past to you?” Flint asked, still watching as Silver drank deep.

“I also hope that _you_ would see me as a friend.” Silver answered simply.

Flint watched him for long moments, and his posture relaxed, one leg bent with his elbow on his knee, the other leg resting on the sand, watching the flames dance before them.  
“Back in England, before all _this_ ,” Flint gestured at the ship, the bay, encompassing everything around them in one movement,   
“Mrs Barlow, Mrs _Hamilton_ and her husband, Thomas...we’d...I ...we ended up as lovers. How? Does it matter anymore? Do I need to go into detail?”

“Thank You,” Silver said quietly after a time, “for telling me.” That was it - the brick fell free from Flint’s Wall.

Flint looked up sharply, “If I regret telling you this,” his voice was hard, threatening, and Silver held his hands up in hesitation, confused.

“You won’t. I understand what it’s like to, to be like that,” Silver lowered his hands, keeping eye contact with Flint.

Flint looked at him and gave a brief nod, Silver could see the firelight play in his eyes, then asked, “You?”

Silver shrugged, “More like ‘sweethearts’, that ‘a wife’.”

Silver took a swallow of rum. It was fair, if Flint had divulged such vital and delicate history, that Silver compensated him. “Five years ago, together two years. We were found and he was beaten, throat slashed in front of me. They had tried to drown me then. Tied to an anchor and thrown overboard. One of the crew hadn’t tied me properly, probably a convenient oversight on my part, but I was able to escape.

Silver took another greedy gulp of rum into his mouth, swallowing hard and coughing against the sting, his eyes watering. He looked over to Flint, tears still in his eyes, “Now you have leverage over me should something happen.”

“I have no need of leverage over you, Silver,” Flint shook his head.

“Because now we’re even?” Silver asked, putting the bottle back in the sand between them.

“No. because we are friends.”

“Is that really what you think? That sharing secrets makes us friends?” 

“It was you yourself that wished us to be friends. What are friends if not those who share history and secrets?” Flint asked as if it were as simple as that. Why did Flint have to turn his words against him.

“There is much I prefer, that I need to leave in the past, Captain. If we’re to be friends, this cannot be spoken of again. Men like us, we can’t speak of this. Not in the daylight, not ever.” Silver replied, his eyes drawn to Flint. It felt to him as if they had reversed their roles. Silver pondered about the brick that he had been trying to pry loose from Flint’s indomitable wall of a person. Perhaps the space he had seen was a mirror to what he didn’t want others to see, and by prying it loose, had allowed himself to be revealed to Flint in return.

Flint nodded in understanding, his eyes focused on the fire before them, “I would like to call you friend.”

Perhaps it wasn’t so bad to be seen.

Silver looked up from the fire to Flint sitting next to him, watching the orange glow flicker over the captain’s features, and gave a small smile when Flint turned and met his eyes, “It would be an honor.”


End file.
